WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
More than nine months have passed since Ariki Rigby’s brutalised body was found in a torched car in rural Hawke’s Bay. As her killers remain at large, her sister talked to Neil Reid about the long wait for justice and how she wants to help other families affected by horrendous crimes.
Tears well in Anaherā Rigby’s eyes as she looks around River Rd Recreational Reserve.
For most who visit the bush-clad park on the outskirts of Havelock North – including dog walkers, picnic groups and mountain bikers – the reserve overlooking Tukituki River is a place of joy and tranquillity.
But for Anaherā, it is a place of the deepest of sorrow and pain; the spot where her 18-year-old sister’s killers cut Ariki’s hands and feet off before shoving her badly beaten body in the back of a car and setting it alight in early September.
For the past nine months, Anaherā has made numerous impassioned pleas via the Herald for those who know who murdered Ariki to come forward.
And now she has become involved in a group pushing for harsher sentences for killers – including mandatory non-release life sentences for murderers – and trying to secure a permanent memorial for Ariki where her body was discovered.
“It is tough being here,” Anaherā told the Herald during a recent visit to the scene.
“It is like I feel dead inside coming here . . . I feel nothing. It is like I am absent of joy coming here.
“And I don’t like feeling like that, which is the reason why I want to make this place beautiful so we can come back here.”
Either late in the evening of Friday, September 2, or in the early hours of Saturday, September 3, the car – a mid-90s dark grey Toyota Corona – was driven to the reserve and then torched.
The wreck was reported to police on September 3. The officers who attended deemed Ariki’s remains were those of a sheep.
A tow truck was booked to take it to a wrecking yard two days later, but police returned to the scene that day after being told by a dog walker who looked into the car and realised the body – which had shoulder-length hair and was wearing a necklace – was human.
“No one deserves to die like that,” Anaherā - who revealed in April her sister’s hands and feet had been cut off – said.
Ariki had been living in Auckland but was killed on what was believed to be her last day on holiday in Hawke’s Bay – where she was raised – before her planned return north.
As well as dealing with the pain of losing Ariki in the shocking crime, the Rigby family has had to endure the heartache of the initial police mistake, plus a near-10-month wait for answers over their loved one’s slaying.
Anaherā says she believes multiple “gang-affiliated” people were responsible, and the motive was “jealousy and drugs”.
This week, police told the Herald “inquiries are ongoing”. In a statement, a spokesperson said there were no further “updates to share at this time”.
On May 10 police were more forthcoming; Detective Inspector David de Lange said police were committed to “holding the person or persons responsible” for her death to account.
“At the moment our focus remains on the active investigation into Ariki’s death. This includes analysis of all evidence to date,” de Lange said.
“We reiterate that the investigation remains at a sensitive stage and we are continuing to make progress.”
Anaherā said she realised police had to be careful how much information they shared with her family so as not to compromise the investigation.
But that wasn’t much consolation to the deep feeling of loss they were suffering. She said, nine months on, it still “feels like we have just her”.
Anaherā believed some people hadn’t provided statements to police for fear of their own safety.
“People lie when they see a uniform,” she said.
“And people don’t want to get caught talking to people in a uniform because even that gets them in trouble, especially when it is gang-related. Their saying is, ‘snitches get stitches’.
“I don’t know why [people] are raised like that, it is just a yuck motto.”
Other information had been relayed to police from family members approached by people who didn’t want to talk directly to the police, Anaherā said.
Since mid-September, family and friends of Ariki have been placing flyers at shops and public places around Hastings and Flaxmere urging anyone with information to come forward to them or Crime Stoppers anonymously.
Anaherā is a member of the recently created United as One, Unite for All; a group trying to raise awareness of missing persons cases and unsolved serious crimes, as well as push for greater scrutiny of police and harsher sentences.
Being part of the not-for-profit organisation had exposed her to some families who had been waiting more than a decade for justice after losing loved ones to homicide.
Such a long wait for answers and justice was something she would do all she could to ensure her family avoided.
“I am refusing to sit here for maybe years and years and waiting for nothing to happen. I can’t sit there and wait that long,” Anaherā said.
“For me, [the police] have only got a certain amount of time before we do our own investigation again. People do get threatened about giving information and I guess that is one of the problems with trying to solve the case unless we are actively trying to do it as well at the same time.”
Earlier this month Anaherā and other members of Unite as One, Unite for All marched through Wellington’s CBD before presenting a petition to Parliament calling for better “competency” from frontline officers.
Unite as One, Unite for All was created by Breanna Muriwai’s mother, Jasmin Gray, earlier this year.
Among cases they are raising awareness of are the Ariki Rigby homicide, plus the missing person’s cases of Muriwai and Lower Hutt man Omri Collins; last seen leaving a Wellington motel on August 31.
Collins’ family spoke late last year about how they fear their loved one had been killed.
The group hopes to be advocates to raise awareness for unsolved homicide and missing persons’ cases around New Zealand.
Unite as One, Unite for All presented a petition to Parliament calling for better “competency” from frontline officers, including bigger scrutiny on those who make errors during investigations.
In a message to its 5700 online followers, Gray said there had been an “awesome turnout” to the public march earlier this month.
“And the ones that were there in heart and spirit, I know you couldn’t make it, but I know that you were thinking of us,” Gray said.
She said it was then an “amazing feeling” to have the chance to talk to Justice Minister Kiri Allan.
“She heard us, she listened to us,” Gray said of the 35-minute meeting.
“She was asking questions of what we felt needed to change. There are a lot of things about the justice system that need to change.”
Anaherā said she was among members who were set to campaign publicly for mandatory life with no chance of parole sentences for murderers.
“I want to try and push for a change of legislation so that what happens in Aotearoa is fair,” she said.
“If you take a life, you shouldn’t be able to just spend a quarter of your life in there and then get out and live the rest of your life as if you didn’t murder someone. Life should be life.
“At the moment people might think, ‘oh well, I will only go away for a 15-year lag and then I’ll get out. See yas when I get out, brothers’. That is what it is like.
“They don’t see it as their punishment . . . it is like going to a boot camp; you get to work out, you get fed, read books and get qualifications . . . what kind of a punishment is that?”
Being part of Unite as One, Unite for All had given Anaherā an opportunity to take her mind off of her own deep grieving and offer support to other families; including that of missing woman Breanna Muriwai, who was last seen on the Kāpiti Coast in August 2022.
Her family believe she was killed and have claimed they know the identities of those involved.
“I realise that a lot of other people know my pain,” Anaherā said. “That is the saddest thing. But helping others out always makes you feel good.”
Ariki was killed about a month before she was set to turn 19.
She had dreams of pursuing a music career. She had also contemplated moving to Australia to live with Queensland-based relatives.
Anaherā told the Herald in January how she believed multiple “gang-affiliated” people were responsible for her murder.
“For them to get away with it, there must have been a lot of them,” she said.
“And still to get away with it, they must have had a plan . . . if the police can’t find them, obviously it [the incident and the ongoing freedom of the killers] was not an accident.”
In April she went further, saying she believed “jealousy and drugs” were the motive.
She believed her sister was either “doing drugs or selling them”.
“Even though I am answering that question and saying jealousy and drugs, I am still sitting here thinking, well that is not enough to do something so horrible to somebody.”
Auckland-based Anaherā visited Hawke’s Bay recently on the way to and from the march in Wellington.
She paid a special visit to the temporary memorial erected by friends and family at River Road Recreational Reserve.
The place of remembrance includes flowers, solar lights, handwritten cards and a number plate featuring Ariki’s name.
Anaherā is in discussions with the Hastings District Council to have a permanent memorial installed at the park.
Each day she hopes she will receive a phone call bringing news of a major breakthrough in the police investigation.
But whenever that call may come, Anaherā knows the pain of losing her younger sister will last forever.
“It is now about us trying to get over it all, move forward ... and that sucks, it will be hard,” she said.
“There will be a lot of healing in that.”
Rain started falling at the top of the country before dawn.